Reunions
by Ithilwen K-Bane
Summary: Héctor spent ninety-six years in the afterlife waiting to see Coco again. At first, there were a lot of people who remembered him. And you don't stop writing music just because you're a little thing like dead.
1. Chistes

It wasn't such a bad afterlife at first.

With the first one, he didn't feel a thing. How could he?

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"He's calmed down," the clerk murmured to someone outside the door. "You can come in."

Héctor picked his head up off the desk in the office of new arrivals, turning around as another skeleton walked in.

"Héctor, is that you?"

He looked the woman up and down. The sunburst flowers on her cheeks glared back, but something about her narrow chin and her forehead...

She wrung her hands in front of her dress. He looked at his own fingers and back at hers. "Héctor, I don't know if you—"

"Mamá?"

She nodded, covering her mouth with one hand.

"But you died when I was baby."

"I've wanted to see you ever since."

He stood up and took her hands. "I always wondered what you were like."

"We can finally get to know each other." She folded her arms around him in a hug that should have felt like bones but didn't. Héctor pressed his face against her shoulder and took in a scent that was almost memory.

She pulled back, knuckling a tear from her eye. "I'm just glad I got to see you at all."

"What do you mean, Mamá?"

The clerk cleared his throat. "Mr. Rivera, your mother's hometown was hit hard by the influenza a few years ago, and like yourself she died young. When that happens—"

"It's all right," Héctor's mother said to the clerk. "I'll tell him."

Héctor told his mother about his life, about Coco. She told him old family jokes. It was two years before that last old schoolmate forgot the funny story about a girl who'd brought a frog to class. Héctor came to visit his mother's place one day, and the neighbors said she was gone. .

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_Tell the one about our family,_

_It made me laugh so loud,_

_The one about the cactus tree,_

_The day I made you proud._

_Your spirit like a memory,_

_A shining golden cloud._

-"Chistes," by Héctor Rivera


	2. Arithmetic

The path to the land of the dead wasn't the same for everyone. There was a reason most people only crossed over when the living built them a bridge. Héctor didn't like to think about what had happened right after he'd woke up dead. It was easier for other people. Some, the ones who were truly ready, could simply follow a guide to the office of new arrivals and knock on the door.

The alebrije might stay with them and wait. Or it might go and tell an old friend that someone was in need of welcome.

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"Sister Maria Celeste!" said Héctor, raising his arms in a welcome that dumped the pink puffball alebrije off his shoulder. "Welcome to the afterlife."

The old nun turned around in her chair in the office of new arrivals and held up one thick-boned hand and the alebrije flapped up from floor to desktop on batty wings. "Don't tell me. I remember every child who ever sat in my classroom." She pushed her glasses up over where her nose had been. "Why you're that boy who used to sing the multiplication tables! Hernán? Héctor! I used your rhymes with the children for years."

"I know, Sister Celeste, and it did me such good," he threw himself down in the chair next to her, earning a flumph from the alebrije, which flicked its long tongue at him in annoyance. "I may be a sorry sight when you were expecting Saint Peter, but I hope you'll let me show you around. The other sisters from Santa Cecilia have a place near the plaza and I'd be happy to walk you there by the scenic route."

Celeste smiled and took Héctor's proffered arm. The alebrije reared back on its tail and jumped to Sister's shoulder, where it turned around three times and settled its head down on one wing, shooting Héctor a skeptical glance.

As they headed toward the square, she said quietly, "You were always a good boy, Héctor, but you were never this good unless you wanted something. Now tell Sister Maria Celeste what it is before I see if these new hands of mine can hold a ruler."

"Ah!" Héctor cringed away. "Well..." he took his hat on his hands, fingers shuffling sideways on the brim. "I _was_ wondering, since you were the last person to die in Santa Cecilia..."  
She narrowed her eyes at him.

"If you knew why ...why my wife Imelda never puts my picture on the ofrenda on Dia de Muertos. I really want to visit her and Coco, but if no one puts you on an ofrenda, you can't go."

"Oh!" Sister Celeste blinked behind her glasses. "No one back home knows you're dead."

His hat fluttered to the cobblestones. "What?"

"It's only been a few years, Héctor. Why would we think you were dead?"

"No no no," Héctor shook his head, ducking down to grab his hat. "I wrote home. I sent money—"

Sister Celeste raised an eyebrow.

"—sometimes!" defended Héctor. "What did Imelda think when she stopped getting my letters?"

Sister stopped walking and looked him straight in the eye. "You know what she thought. It isn't as if you were the first man to do it."

Héctor shook his head again. "What about Ernesto? He didn't go see Imelda? He didn't tell her I was on my way home?"

"Ernesto de la Cruz?" Sister Celeste snapped her fingers. "Ah yes, the musician!" she said. "He hasn't been home in years. If he wrote to Imelda, I never heard about it."

Héctor's arms fell to his sides.

"She took up shoemaking of all things," Sister Celeste was saying, looking at her feet. "Doing quite well, actually. I think these might be hers. Sister Maria Eugenia gave them to me. Preferred to be an hermanita descalza, that one."

"She ...thinks I just forgot about them? She thinks I'm that kind of man?"

"You left, Héctor, so you are that kind of man," she reminded him. "You were married with a child. You had no business taking off. You wanted to be a free spirit, and I that appears to be exactly what you became." Sister sighed, putting her hands on his shoulders. "I'm sure once some more time has passed, Imelda will realize that _something_ must have happened to you. The truth will always out sooner or later."

Héctor nodded. "You're right, Sister."

"Now," she said, pulling her bone face into a smile, "I believe you said something about a scenic route?"

He pointed. "There's a garden over this way. Laelia, rhododendron, and a few I never saw until I got here."

She smiled, "I always did like flowers."

He nodded. "I remember."

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_So three times five's not seven, and nine sixes aren't eleven,_  
_I tell you I would be in heaven, if you'd say you know me better._  
_I've got ten times fifty sorrows, and every minute borrows,_  
_And I'd give up twelve tomorrows, just to write you one more letter,_  
_But if two times ten is twenty, and this answer's all you sent me,_  
_I'll be happy plenty, when you put two and two together.  
I'll be happy plenty, when we're two and two together._

-"Arithmetic," by Héctor Rivera

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I wrote the draft of this chapter and then saw that the extended content names Hector as a tour guide of the city of the dead and confirms that he did send money home. Still, there's a temptation to sanitize him. He may have wanted to come back, but leaving was his own decision.


	3. Bad Luck

I wrote several versions of this chapter until I finally realized this is fanfiction and I don't have to go in chronological order.

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"You got a gig tonight, Héctor?"

He looked up from his usual place in the plaza, where a few coins gleamed up from his guitar case. "Not tonight, Mamá," he said. "Why? Did you hear of someone who needs a fill-in?"

Alita shook her head, the light from the late afternoon glinting on her sunburst flowers. "You've been dead nearly six months, Héctor. You can't keep busking all day and playing with a different band every night."

"Not _every_ night," he said. "I have a couple of groups who know to look for me when they need an extra guitarist. I like to keep my options open until I find the right guys—or gals," he added. His mother's opinions on the scarcity of female mariachis had sailed across her kitchen table many times. "Until then, I'm building a reputation."

His fingers found the frets of his guitar again. "Join a band and they've got their own habits. And then this one leaves because his living-time bandmates died and they want to do a reunion; that guy leaves because his grandchildren are finally here and he wants to spend more time with them. I'd rather fill in for this guitarist here and that fiddler there. I don't want to have to fight like I did with Ernesto."

"That friend of yours?" Alita sat down next to her son. "From what you tell me, you did most of the songwriting. That's why I think you should start your own band. Then you could set the habits."

Héctor's shoulders dropped. "I don't know." His mouth tightened. "I wonder how he's doing. He really didn't want me to leave."

Alita looked out across the plaza. "I know he didn't put your picture up last November."

"It's for Imelda to put my picture up," he said, "but I guess he's still angry that I left. I'll think about it, Mamá," he said. "I love that you think I could start my own band, but really I'm just not that special. Ernesto was our people person. He did all the—"

There was a startled scream from the far edge of the plaza. Héctor got to his feet, reaching out a hand to Alita. Ahead of them, the crowd was parting around a man in a wide-brimmed hat like oil running from a drop of water. The man stumbled and fell, too heavily, to one knee.

"He's sick," said Héctor. "Wait, can we get sick? Is he being forgotten?"

Alita put a hand to her face. "No," she said. "Almost the opposite."

There was a gusty breeze and the hat blew off the man's salt-and-pepper head. Héctor joined the collective gasp at the sight of skin and a nose. "What... But he's—"

Alita kept a grip like iron on Héctor's fingerbones. "Don't go near him!" she said.

"Why not? He needs help!"

"If that poor man is here, he's probably cursed," she said firmly. "Oh dear. It's almost sunset."

"He—sunset—what?"

Héctor watched as the last light of the sun set behind the far towers, and shadows grew between the bones of the stranger's face.

"The living don't belong here, Héctor," Alita said quietly. " They can't find their way unless something in them is already dead. Sometimes it's hope. Sometimes it's luck. If you aren't careful, you can catch a curse."

"So..." Héctor said, "he's here because he ran out of luck?" Héctor had always had a funny feeling that it would take more than a chorizo to finish a fella off.

The sun was going down over the hills. The people in the plaza kept backing toward the walls. One woman in a tight-fitting hat almost put a heel down on Héctor's guitar before he snatched out of harm's way and slung it over his back by its strap. The living man turned and looked over his shoulder.

Héctor liked to busk on the west side of the plaza, up on one of the wide stone steps, where people could see him and the acoustics were good. But that meant he got to look the stranger full in the face as he watched the sun set behind the towers.

There was a lip pulled down in dismay, pockmarked nose flared wide, full cheeks gone pale with fear, until there wasn't. The life seemed to hiss out of the man like a piece of pork on a stove. It should have been a relief to watch it all fade away like shadows, but Héctor felt sick to his rib-bones.

Héctor had gotten to the point where he didn't really think about being dead. But here was something important, something _vital_ pouring away, like dumping cold water out onto sand in front of people dying of heatstroke. No wonder everyone was so upset.

It was a normal face now, a normal skull, but something about it was still making his spine crawl. Something was still off. It was too smooth, like a hardboiled egg with the shell peeled off wet.

"Oooh," breathed the woman, a hand going to her mouth. "His face..." She started to point and then put her hand down. Instead, she touched the pink and gold waves that fringed her eye sockets.

Alita shook her head, one hand at her chest. "Nothing at all."

Héctor frowned. "What..."

"No markings," said Alita.

Héctor blinked. The stranger's new face was smooth and white as a grain of rice. Alita tapped the floral marks on her cheek bones. "He may belong here now, but he's still cursed."

"Is that why some people don't have..." Héctor shook his head, clicked his guitar into its case and walked out into the center of the plaza.

"Don't go over there, m'ijo!"

He looked over his shoulder, "It'll be all right, Mamá."

Héctor walked up to him. The man seemed shorter now, like an egg about to break.

"Hey," he said.

The newly skeletal figure stared at its hands.

"It's not so bad here." He took a step closer. "I can show you around."

The new guy didn't move. Héctor carefully sat down next to him.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

The new guy shook his head.

Héctor let the silence settle. Sometimes the rests were as important as the notes. He could practically feel Alita and a few braver or curious souls watching from the back of the plaza.

When it was time for sound again, "They've got people here who can find your family," said Héctor. "There must be someone down here you'd be glad to see."

The new guy was quiet for a long time.

"My ...an old lady in my town. I think she might be a witch."

"Oh," said Héctor, turning toward the man. "They used to say that about a girl in my hometown. Had a tongue sharper than a razor."

"Yeah? What you do about it?"

"I married her."

The new guy made a little snorting sound. Then again. Then a full laugh.

There was a murmur from what was left of the crowd.

"Bruja or no bruja, you do something to that woman?" asked Héctor.

The man winced. The blank white face didn't seem quite as off-putting now that there was an expression on it. "Well ...maybe," he said. "I didn't think it was that bad but—"

"—curses don't know the difference?"

"Well maybe we find her. She's got to show up here sooner or later, right?"

The new guy shook his head. "It's those old broads who live forever."

"But maybe you can say you're sorry." Héctor frowned. "You _are_ sorry, aren't you?"

"Well I am _now_. But what difference would it make?"

"I don't know..." Héctor couldn't help rubbing the purple markings on his own forehead. "Maybe you'll feel better? I know I'd give anything to be able to tell someone I'm sorry."

"What, now that I'm dead?"

"Yes," said Héctor, "but life goes on." He stood up, holding out a hand.

The new guy eyed the fingerbones, then held up his own hand and looked at it. He breathed in and out, picked up his hat, and took Héctor's hand.

"You said there are people who can help me find my family?" he asked.

Héctor nodded toward the edge of the plaza. "I hadn't seen my mamá since I was so little that I never knew what she looked like. But they still found her for me." Héctor gave Alita a nod as he steered the new guy out of the plaza. The new guy was plodding along after him.

"I'm going to learn about curses," he said. "I'm going to find out what I did wrong." He put his hat on his head. Maybe people wouldn't notice his colorless face. Or maybe he could just have an artist make him up every day, like a man going for a shave.

The new guy nodded again. "Life goes on."

"Especially down here," added Héctor.

On the walk, Héctor watched the faces around him. Sure enough, every so often there was a face without colors or markings. He'd never thought about why before.

When they came to the office of new arrivals, the clerk's spectacles dropped off his face. After ushering the new man off to a colleague, he took Héctor by the elbow. "You walked all the way here? With him?" he said in a whispered hiss. "Usually we have to send officers to bring in a cursed person. Didn't he try to run off?"

Héctor shrugged. "It was nothing special," he said.

That evening, he went to a print shop and had some posters made.

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MARIACHI BAND. MUSICIANS WANTED. CLASSIC STYLE. SEE HÉCTOR RIVERA, PLAZA DEL SOL.

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_I ran out of luck once under a streetlight,_  
_I never thought I could wait for so long,_  
_But life goes on._  
_Life goes on._  
_And if walking alone won't bring me where you are,_  
_I'll put one foot in front of the other.  
Life goes on._

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"Life Goes On," by Héctor Rivera

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I wrote this chapter regretting that I'd already killed off Héctor's mother and then I realized I don't have to write them in order because it's fanfiction. So we're doing a backstep!

I figured that Héctor's mother picked out his name, possibly because it was Greek, perhaps because her own name was Greek, and "Alita" is short for "Alejandra." Feel free to let me know if any of the extended content gave her name.


	4. Barefoot Blues

The problem with being dead is that the land of the living keeps moving without you.

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Faces were funny things. You could play a dozen gigs with a guy and then not recognize him if you saw him out of his stage clothes. When Mateo climbed the stairs to the second-floor apartment not far from the Plaza del Sol, Héctor knew him by his trumpet long before connecting the high browbones with their red-orange wave markings to the man he'd met in Sonora.

"I'm here for the audition?" he said.

Héctor was already clapping him on the shoulder and beckoning him inside. "Welcome to the afterlife, Mateo!" he said with a laugh. Héctor pointed a cautioning finger at Mateo. "No pretending you don't remember me," he joked. It had been a twinge, like an ache in a broken bone on a rainy day. One trip to the office of new arrivals and, sure enough, someone who knew him had left the living world.

"After the way we closed down that night concert in Hermosillo?" Mateo set his trumpet case on the floor. "That performance changed my life!" he said. "Nice place you got," he added.

"Small terrace, but I like it," he answered. "I wanted something a little nice for when my wife gets here."

"Oh no," said Mateo. "Is she sick?"

"Oh!" Héctor blinked. "Not that I know of." He recovered. "Anyway, this is Gazpar," he motioned to the man waiting at the kitchen table, who waved. "The rest of the Sol Plaza Boys won't be by until later." He picked up a the guitar that lay tuned and ready on the kitchen table and strummed out the key. "I need to make sure you remember how to play that thing before introducing you to the band."

Mateo picked up his trumpet and frowned, staring at the pearl-white fingertips. "Maybe you can tell me..."

"What?"

"Why it feels the same?" he nodded at his hands. "I'm dead. I can see I'm dead. But I still feel like I got skin."

Héctor grew quiet. "Didn't your family talk to you about this?"

Mateo laughed. "I've only been dead four days. My wife had other things on her mind—"

Héctor looked away.

"—and my brother won't shut up about the money I owe him."

"Dead and still got bills to pay?"

"Ain't it the truth." Mateo put his fingers to the trumpet and a solo soared out. People in the street stopped outside the open window to listen. Brassy and full of flourishes, the kind of song that could make complete strangers get up and dance together in step. A few passers-by clapped as Mateo finished.

Héctor was still as a stone. Gazpar covered his chin with one hand.

Mateo's smile sank a little. "What's wrong?" he asked. "It sounded okay in my head, but I'm used to having actual ears." He took of his hat and gave the side of his head a pat.

"Oh! No," said Héctor, holding out one palm. "It's only ...what song was that?"

"Well, I figured you'd be playing in the classic style, like when you performed with Ernesto de la Cruz," said Mateo. "That was a de la Cruz song. His biggest hit. 'Remember Me.'"

Héctor's laugh didn't make it all the way out of his mouth. "That's not how you play 'Remember Me,'" he said. "'Remember Me' is simple, quiet, one-on-one."

"Are we talking about the same song?" asked Mateo. "'Remember Me' is the grand farewell. Brings down the house every time."

Héctor shook his head. "Ernesto always wanted to get too fancy. I bet he dressed it up as some big gal-wooing love song too."

"Didn't he write it that way from the start?"

"Did he what now?" Héctor felt like he'd been punched. "No. No, I wrote 'Remember Me.' For my daughter."

Mateo seemed to remember he was auditioning for a job. "Well, when I met the two of you on tour, neither of you talked about who wrote what. Then a couple years later he says something to me like you two wrote it together, but yeah, now it's just his name on the records."

Records. Like phonograph cylinders but better quality. In his day, "music sales" had meant sheet music for people to play themselves. Ernesto had looked into getting them a deal on Héctor's compositions, but what had that contract said..?

Héctor clicked his tongue. "A recording company, right?" he said. He'd heard of those. Newly dead musicians complaining about contracts. "Music as a business. I bet they made him say he wrote the songs by himself so that they'd sell more copies."

"I have heard of that happening," allowed Mateo.

"Well," said Héctor. "'Nesto better take his vitamins, because he and I are having a long talk when he gets down here."

Mateo smiled, but still seemed a little nervous.

"I guess you couldn't have auditioned using the song the way I wrote it," Héctor admitted. "I don't know of many lullabies that call for the trumpet."

"That's true. Neither of my kids found my music very restful. So..." Mateo's fingers flickered across the keys of his trumpet. "This band I'm auditioning for. You guys like simple?"

Héctor gave a sideways shrug. "I change it up. You can't do the whole set in any one way; people get bored," he said. "But the simpler a song is, the more perfect it has to be. Lets you get more expressive." Ernesto had always wanted to make things so complicated. I want to play the song the way I wrote it. I want to go home because I miss my wife and daughter. Simple.

"Simple. Expressive," Mateo counted on his fingers. "Okay if it's sad?" He tilted his head to the side, then smiled. For real this time. "There's something else I want to play for you."

Héctor frowned. "All right."

"It's a style that's getting really big north of the border," he added.

Héctor leaned forward, hands on his knees.

This time, the sound was lower and darker, earth instead of brass, like the ground just after dark, when it's still hot enough to scorch bare feet. No one in the street started dancing or clapping. Instead they just stopped.

"What was that?" asked Héctor. Quietly, reverently.

Mateo leaned his trumpet against his leg. "They call it the Blues."

"The Blues," repeated Héctor.

"Now I'm not saying we play a whole set," said Mateo. "People ask for a classic mariachi band, that's what we give them, but maybe one or two songs a night..."

Héctor was already nodding. "Tell me more."

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Mateo performed with Héctor's Sol Plaza Boys for eighteen months, and Héctor tried his hand at the Blues. Though he'd never say it held a candle to his home style, he found something appealing in the call and response, like the people in the audience trying not to be so very much like strangers. Mateo moved on to a blues band. Over the years, he found there was no point correcting people when they called de la Cruz a great songwriter. But when Mateo and his guys needed a new song, something original, they knew who to come to.

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_Lost my last shoe the other day,_  
_Wore it out on these stones._  
_Dead and still got bills to pay,  
Nothing left but my bones. _

_"Barefoot Blues," by Héctor Rivera and the Sol Plaza Boys_


	5. Reputation

It was big this time. It hurt. He nearly stumbled off the stage where Gazpar and Augustin were setting up. A wisp of gold, so thin it might have been imagined, slipped away from his right shoulder. Augustin helped Héctor into a chair. "I've seen this before," he muttered. "Somebody died. Real sudden-like. Somebody who remembered you real hard."

Héctor sat up. He breathed in and out. He'd been waiting for this. He'd planned out what to say. But it was too early, _years_ too early. Coco would only be a young woman, too young to be without her mother. Unless—

Héctor swallowed hard.

The biggest hug. The best he could do.

There was a sound of claws scratching at the door.

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Hector walked into the Office of New Arrivals doubled over with one of the three blue triplet alebrijes dragging the sleeve of his rehearsal shirt, and the other two on his pant legs.

"I'm sorry, sir," he could hear Counselor Gilberto through the thin wood paneling. "We've had a little trouble identifying your next of kin. You can ask for someone, of course—"

"Do you _know_ who I am?" came a voice.

Héctor straightened, flipping the arm-chewing alebrije into the air as he practically exhaled the dust off the windowpanes.

He shooed away the alebrijes and knocked on the door. One of the newer employees started to open her mouth, but Gilberto poked his head out and beckoned Héctor inside. One of the alebrijes ran straight to the new arrival and jumped in his lap, rubbing its shiny turquoise-scaled head against his arm.

"Those—" the man in Gilberto's counseling chair picked the alebrije up to eye level. "Those are the three little dogs that led me here."

"Yes," said Gilberto, sneezing heavily. He adjusted his glasses on his curse-clear face as Héctor gaped at the new arrival. "Spirit guides can _seem_ like regular animals when they visit the land of the living. They can even trigger my allergies. And, as you can see, they sometimes go and fetch the person you remembered the most."

Héctor gave a little wave. "It's going to be all right, 'Nesto."

The man turned his broad shoulders. "Only my friends get to call me—" His perfectly square jaw fell open and his face managed to go a shade paler as he cringed back in his chair. "No," he muttered under his breath. "No, it can' t be... _Héctor?_"

"This is normal," Gilberto leaned to the side and murmured in Héctor's ear—or would have if he'd been taller. Or if they'd had ears. "Some people don't accept that they're dead until they see a loved one."

Héctor took the seat opposite. "It's really me, Ernesto." He raised a finger to wagging height. "And I think we both know I've got a score to settle with you."

Ernesto gasped. "Please, Héctor, I—"

"You _didn't tell my wife I was dead?_" Héctor chided. "Imelda's still there in Santa Cecilia, never putting up my photo on Dia de Los Muertos because she still hopes I'm going to come home one day..."

Gilberto looked sideways at Héctor, then pointed his eyes back at his clipboard.

"...I know it must have been hard," Héctor put one hand on Ernesto's, "watching your best friend die of food poisoning—"

Ernesto's mouth fell open as he looked off to the side.

"—but you had a duty, hermano. You should have told my family what happened to me."

Ernesto looked left, then right. "So you don't ...blame me?"

"For what? Me dying?" Héctor sat back in his chair. "If there's anyone to blame it was that chorizo guy who couldn't cook his meat properly. Must've learned food prep at stupid school," he stood up. "Look, Gilberto here can find any relatives you want for you," he said, "but my best friend isn't staying anywhere but at my place until he gets on his feet." He gave a big, sincere smile, "The guys in my band are going to be thrilled to meet you. If you want, you can perform with us. I have so many new songs I want to run by you."

"_New_ songs?" Ernesto sat forward.

"I wasn't going to give up songwriting just because I was a little thing like dead," said Héctor. "My Sol Plaza Boys perform at neighborhood events, weddings, arrival parties, anniversaries. Nothing like the big venues you're used to, but there are like twenty families who hire us for _everything_. We're really getting to know our customers. Oh! Do you remember Mateo from Sonora?"

"So you're a hometown musician," Ernesto said, muttering to himself. "You had to die to get your dream."

"I wouldn't say that," Héctor answered. Coco would be twenty-two now. Maybe she was married. Maybe there was a grandson named Héctor.

"I suppose I..." Ernesto took a deep breath. Then he looked up, from Gilberto to Héctor and back. "So, none of what we learned in Sunday school is real? There's no divine truth or judgement? No hell?"

"That is actually an interesting question," chirped Gilberto. "We don't know any more about that than we did in the land of the living. The Christian afterlife _might_ be what awaits us after the final death. I'm a believer myself," he gestured to a simple cross decoration on the wall behind him.

"Final—what?"

Héctor put a hand on Gilberto's arm. "This place runs on memories," he said. "The more people remember you in the living world, the better you do down here."

"Like with money?"

"In a way," said Gilberto. "You can trade your Dia de Muertos offerings if you want to but most people don't get enough to make much difference."

"And I get by fine without any," added Héctor. "But memories are what keep our bones together. The minute _you_ died, amigo, I keeled over right in the middle of rehearsal." He gave a little laugh, feeling relief wash over him like a cool rain.

"What you really need," Gilberto cut in, "is for people in the living world to remember you."

"So my ...reputation is keeping me alive?" Ernesto looked down at his bone hands and cocked that movie-star grin. "So to speak?"

"Exactly!" said Gilberto.

Ernesto looked at Héctor appraisingly. Héctor nodded in support. "Ask him whatever you want, 'Nesto. Whatever will make you feel better to know."

Ernesto put a hand to his chin. "Is there any way to contact the living? Tell someone a..." he looked at Héctor "...information?"

Gilberto shook his head. "Communication is mostly one-way. You can visit your relatives on Dia de los Muertos—"

"If someone puts your photo on their ofrenda," Héctor cut in.

"—as long as your photo's on at least one ofrenda," Gilberto nodded, "but the people we visit can't see or hear us. It's more of a ...spiritual presence."

"So if I had a secret, and someone in this world found out, it wouldn't affect my reputation among the living?" asked Ernesto.

"So show business wasn't all guitars and glamour like we thought when we were boys?" Héctor elbowed him in the ribs. "Everyone has to get their hands dirty sometimes."

Ernesto exhaled shakily.

"Hm..." Gilberto cupped his chin. "I suppose it _could_ be possible to get a message back to the land of the living if you ran into a living person who's ended up down here before their true time," he tapped his pen against the clipboard, "_and_ if that person manages to get back before the sun changes. But most cursed people just stay cursed," he tapped his pen against his own unmarked cheekbone, "as I should know!"

"Oh, did you ever run into the bruja?" asked Héctor.

Gilberto sighed heavily, "_Still_ alive. Can you believe it?"

"So if I have a secret," said Ernesto, "I should still keep it to myself," he nodded.

Héctor got quiet. "Gilberto?" he asked. "Can you give us a minute?"

Gilberto put a hand on Héctor's shoulder and left, closing the door carefully behind him. The three Chihuahua-sized alebrijes followed him, and he stifled a sneeze.

"'Nesto, moment of truth time." Héctor turned the chair around and faced Ernesto over the back. "What I'm going to say stays in this room forever, you understand? We're going to square it between us, and then I am going to forget it ever happened."

"I see." Ernesto took a deep breath. "If that's what you want."

Héctor breathed out. "At first, I didn't know it was you."

Ernesto frowned. "Who else could it have been?"

"I was worried it was Imelda. Or even Coco." Héctor's hand covered his mouth as he pressed his eyes shut.

When he opened them, Ernesto's face was completely blank.

"There are only a couple of people who remember me big time," he went on. "When I saw it was you here and not my girl—"

Ernesto leaned forward.

"I'm _not_ glad you're dead, Ernesto. But I feel like the world's worst friend." Tears started in his eyes.

Ernesto put a hand on his shoulder.

"Can you forgive me, 'Nesto?" asked Héctor. "Please?"

"My friend," he said, eying Gilberto's crucifix on the wall beside the door. "There is nothing to forgive."

.  
.

"The guys in my band will be thrilled to meet you," said Héctor. "Gazpar is a real fan. But are you sure you don't want Gilberto to look for your ancestors? His real talent is curses, but he's good at finding people."

"Ah you know what I say about life as an artist, Héctor," said Ernesto.

"'The world is our family,'" they finished at the same time. Héctor chuckled.

"At least now you can tell my guys that I wrote 'Remember Me,'" said Héctor.

"_Tell_ them?" asked Ernesto. "Didn't you tell them you wrote all our songs?"

"Sure, but nobody believes me. Some of them don't even believe I know you."

Ernesto touched his chin.

Héctor Rivera and Ernesto de la Cruz walked out of the Office of New Arrivals shoulder to shoulder. Waiting outside was a huge crowd. Some were holding signs reading "¡BIENVENIDO ERNESTO!" one had a picture of a giant bell being broken in half, big letter Xs over a tongue sticking out.

Héctor gave a laugh and elbowed Ernesto in the ribs. "I guess word got out."

"Señor de la Cruz, my family operates the best hotel this side of the city, and I would be honored to have you stay with us."

"Señor de la Cruz, I manage the Grand Waterfall theater. Should you wish to perform, I will open our schedule for you."

"Señor de la Cruz—"

"Señor de la Cruz—!"

Héctor stepped back to let 'Nesto bask in attention from his beloved fans, shaking his head. Same old Nesto. The crowd closed in around him and Héctor remembered the glowing ache in his rib cage. He found a bench to sit on while he waited for Ernesto to finish gladhanding his adoring public so they could head over to his place.

When the crowd cleared, Ernesto was gone.

.

.

Ernesto never publicly admitted that Héctor had written his songs.

Soon, rumors came up like smells from a garbage heap about some idiot who'd choked to death trying to fit a whole chorizo in his mouth at once. Must've learned to eat at stupid school. And there was another rumor that that guy was Héctor.

Customers didn't want to hire a band for an arrival party if the guests would spend all their time laughing at the lead guitarist when they should have been welcoming the guest of honor. Héctor sang and played as well as ever, but no one could hear him over "chorizo."

Eventually, he left the Sol Plaza Boys, thinking at least the band he built could keep going without him while he waited for the rumors to die. But Gazpar said the music wasn't the same without him and Augustin got tired of only repeating his favorites and quit.

Héctor bided his time, waiting for people to get tired of their story. He could start another band. He could always write more songs.

.

.

_Chorizo spicy, what a treat,  
I cannot wait my turn to eat,  
In one big gulp I'll soon be fed,  
But what is this? I choke! I'm dead!_

-graffiti, unknown authorship


	6. Lessons

Héctor did not look up from his guitar. "I'm not doing the chorizo song, Cheech."

Chicharron put his hands on his hips. "You want the gig, you got to earn it. You really going to keep busking here every night?"

Héctor managed not to look at the guitar case. There were enough coins there. This time. "I'll see you at rehearsal," he said.

Performing with Cheech's band wasn't Héctor's favorite. The lyrics were always too bawdy, not something you'd want to play in front of children. But they were the only crew whose audience didn't mind a few chorizo jokes. If anything, Cheech said, Héctor's infamy gave their performances some flavor.

But there was no joy in it. On the road with Ernesto, Héctor had sometimes felt no connection to his audience, but this was new. He felt like a monkey jumping around for complete strangers.

And then there was the competition...

On the other side of the plaza, some hack in red mariachi gear was performing a hitchy, upbeat "Remember Me." Four people were dancing, a tall women switching her skirt back and forth.

Héctor tried to do what Sister Maria Celeste had always taught him: avoid uncharitable thoughts. The poor fool didn't know what that song was supposed to sound like. He watched as the woman's companion swept her into a spin. For a second, even from this distance, Héctor could see right through his eyes into his heart, how much he adored her.

If music he'd created could make people that happy, did it really matter if it didn't make _him_ happy any more? And...

...and it wasn't as if Coco still sang it. She probably didn't even remember.

It was a little early, but Héctor moved his fingers on the frets, where the chords had worn in like footsteps on a favorite walking path. He let his eyes fall closed against the funny looks people always gave him, and slipped into "Remember Me." With his luck, no one would ask why he'd ruined a perfectly good showstopper by dumbing it down.

Against his closed eyes, he wondered if maybe it was time to move on from music, find something else. But what did he even know? It wasn't as if he'd gotten _old_ here in the land of the dead, but could he really learn new skills, new habits? He wished he could ask Alita about it, see her sunburst flowers move as she smiled. She'd died young too, and there was no way she'd learned it all before then.

Héctor finished the song, and opened his eyes to see a face hovering just a bit too close to his.

"Oh!" he jumped.

"Ah, perdón?" the woman waved.

Héctor put on his performer's smile. A request almost guaranteed a coin tossed into his guitar case. The woman in front of him was short and barrel-chested, with a wide face touched at the cheekbones with yellow-white laelia flowers, long black braid trailing behind her like a lion's tail.

The woman looked like a Zapotec. Those had been the children subtly placed in the back of even the kindly nuns' classrooms, who'd gotten the least attention and the biggest punishments, the performers who'd never got picked for frontman no matter how sure their fingers were on the strings.

"Si, Señorita?" asked Héctor.

The woman's long skirt rippled, and a small face framed with dark braids peered around the side, white bone hands tight around a doll in a pink dress. Suddenly Héctor remembered seeing these two in the square before.

"Lo siento," Héctor apologized. "Si _Señora_ y Señorita."

The girl smiled, tugging on the ends of her dress like an apron. Héctor couldn't help but laugh. "I don't mean to stare," said Héctor. "It's only, my daughter used to do that at her age." An exaggeration. He hadn't seen Coco at that age. This child was at least six.

"Is she living?" asked the woman.

Héctor nodded. "Gracias a Dios."

"We were on a boat," said the girl. "We drowned."

"That must have been awful," said Héctor. The girl nodded. "I only got food poisoning. I thought I was just sick, so I wasn't scared."

The woman smiled. "I'm Lupe and this is my daughter Maia," she said. "And we were wondering..."

"...do you give lessons?" piped the child. She took one hand off the doll and pointed at the guitar. "I want to learn."

Héctor sat back on his hipbones. "I've never taught anyone to play before," he said.

"Oh..." the woman moved to go.

"I guess—" Héctor called after her. "There is always a first time."

.

.  
Héctor told Lupe to come back tomorrow with Maia, same time. That was long enough to ask around and find out where she could get a child-sized instrument for cheap, to figure out how much to charge per lesson. Lupe didn't look rich. As for a plan... Héctor had been playing for so long that he barely remembered how he'd started. He'd have to pull an Ernesto. He'd have to improvise.

Lupe brought Maia to the square again the next night, hand in hers and wearing what was clearly her best dress. Lupe sat on the other side of the fountain, watching from a distance, as Héctor showed the girl how to hold his own instrument, explaining the basics of frets and chords. Her small fingerbones pressed down as she plucked a single scale at a time.

The next time, Maia showed up carrying a small case. She drew out a mandolin-sized guitar with nylon strings and a yellow-and-white laelia painted on the body in a slow, childish hand. She sat her doll upright against the empty case, and Héctor taught her a simple song that she could play with only three chords.

Héctor began to look forward to his evenings with Maia, Lupe sitting quietly off to the side with her newspaper to read or just closing her eyes against the last of the sunlight.

Héctor prepared simplified versions of "Chistes," "Arithmetic," and "Barefoot Blues," chords-only versions of "Only a Song" and "El Camino a Casa." But he did not have to change "Remember Me."

As the weeks passed, two other people had asked for lessons. Héctor had been hesitant to block out time in the evenings—what if a band had wanted him to fill in? But no one but Cheech ever did.

"Héctor," Chicharron said to him one day.

"Hm?"

"Don't set yourself up for more heartbreak."

"Cheech," he sighed. "Maia's going go from a child who doesn't know how to play music into one who does. Maybe. That's all I'm expecting. I know children here don't get taller and grow up and—wait, _do_ they?"

Cheech shook his head. "That's not what I mean."

"I know she's not Coco," he followed, the ever-present arithmetic in his head. Coco would be old enough to be Lupe's mother by now.

"I know you know she's not Coco," said Cheech. "But why do you think you don't see kids down here? We both know it's not 'cause they don't die."

Héctor shrugged.

"That woman Lupe, she was in her twenties. She'd gone places, met people. The kid—" Cheech dropped his voice. "I'm not saying I believe your stories about performing with De la Cruz," he said. "But even if you did make it all up it means that you—" he poked Héctor hard in the sternum, forcing his attention, "care about people you shouldn't care about."

"Must be why I like you so much, Cheech."

Chicharron shook his head and stomped off.

But Cheech was right. He had to keep his distance. So he never asked Lupe where they were from. He never asked Maia what her doll's name was. They spoke, and he answered politely, and Maia learned chords. Maia learned fingering. Maia wrote a short song of her own, about an alebrije who fell into the canal, and Héctor was so proud he could have died again.

People stopped asking why he was playing "Remember Me" wrong. He still overheard "Chorizo" and "crazy fella thinks he wrote for De la Cruz," but he also heard, "that's the guitar teacher" and "he makes it simple so you can follow it."

As he walked from his tiny, sunless apartment to the Plaza each day, he found his eye trailing up at the buildings, wondering if any of them would make a good studio. He looked at the signs and shingles, pictured "Héctor Rivera, music school." It would be different. Music one-to-one, in the community. Maybe he'd hire on other teachers, other instruments. Maybe he'd look back one day and realize "Chorizo" had put him on his true path.

.

.

One day, Lupe came to the square by herself, sat down opposite him. Héctor smiled. Perhaps she wanted to start lessons for herself.

"That song you play in the evenings, Héctor," she said. "The remember song?"

Héctor opened his mouth but shut it again. "Yes?"

Lupe's hands moved. Héctor saw she was holding a doll with a pink dress.

He remembered what it was to have a gut. To feel punched. To feel cold.

Already? _Already?_

"Would you play it now?" she asked. "Not the way De la Cruz does. The way you do."

Héctor turned his face down, tuning the already perfect strings. He swallowed hard.

"Every day, Lupe," he said.

.  
.

_"I never knew you, not truly, but my dear, I thought I knew me,_  
As well as the path I walked from the start,  
But old ways can twist and old roads take new turns,  
My dear, I thought I knew my own heart,  
How long will it take to me learn?"

"Lessons," by Héctor Rivera

There is a scene in the graphic novel _Bitch Planet_ (think _Orange Is the New Black_ meets _Handmaid's Tale_, but in space) in which a man visits his daughter in prison. When she was young, he and his wife had secretly taught her and other girls advanced mathematics and engineering by saying they were giving her music lessons. They'd play a recording of someone else's lessons to cover their voices. To make this work, she did have to learn to play a little, the violin, usually simpler versions of classic songs, so she could fake her way through a recital. The prison executives say he can't see her in person but allow him to contact her electronically. He asks her to play his favorite song, whose most popular version is famously complicated. The image of his daughter picks up her instrument and executes it perfectly. At this, he knows his daughter has died in the prison and the message is a fake.


	7. Tricks

This time, there was no one to catch him.

Héctor stumbled against the curb, nearly dropping his guitar case. None of the other people on the street even seemed to notice. Gold seeped from his bones like steam, like breath.

It couldn't be Ernesto.

Héctor for a second thought of going back home and changing, but he was already wearing his only shirt without any holes in and his only pair of shoes at all. He stood up, brushed the dust off his guitar case and then his clothes.

The walk to the Office of New Arrivals seemed too short. Every step seemed to go straight to his ligaments, to shake out his bones from their moorings. His rib cage felt empty. He tried to swallow but he didn't feel the heaviness of a tongue or a throat any more.

"Héctor?" Gilberto looked him up and down. He'd been a family reunion counselor for too long not to notice the looseness of Héctor's bones. "You're here for someone?"

He wanted to force a smile, say "Well I'm not here for _you_, chamaco." It came out as, "Is it my wife or my daughter?"

Gilberto checked his clipboard. "It's not my case, but it says her name is Imelda Rivera and—"

Héctor felt his head start to buzz. He lost the rest of what Gilberto said. What he could feel of his stomach was full of butterflies and bats fighting it out.

"—surprised that alebrije didn't come for you. Biggest thing we've seen through here in years..." Gilberto shook his head.

Héctor's eyes drifted toward the side of the room. Two men with identical skulls and identical mustaches sat up on the bench along the wall. They looked at each other and then at Héctor. Héctor blinked, trying to place their faces.

"Is that him, Brother?" said the one in the bow tie.

"I think so, Brother," said the one in the bowler hat.

"What is he doing here?" they asked at the same time.

"I'm here for—" Héctor blinked. "Wait, you're her brothers. Filipe and—" he closed his eyes "—Gazpar?"

"I think you may be less memorable than I am," said the one in the bowler hat.

"Oscár!" Héctor said. "I'm sorry, man. I thought I knew everyone who'd died out of Santa Cecilia. I would have come to see you." He looked them up and down. They were wearing clothes that fit their bony bodies and mustaches that looked like they came from a quality hair and hat shop.

"Yes, I died," said Oscar.

"It was so hard to be without you, Brother."

"But I thought I died first, Brother."

"I don't remember. Did you?"

"Ha," Héctor said nervously, "same old fellas. But if you've been here all this time..."

"We've put together a shop—"

"—but it hasn't been the same without her."

"Shoemaking, eh?" asked Héctor. "I wish you guys would have looked me up. I would have—"

"So he's not in a love nest with some strumpet after all," said Filipe.

"I think it was a trumpet," said Oscar.

"Wait what?" said Héctor. "No, no love nest. I just died."

"Yes, you played guitar," said Oscar.

"Or it might have been a gui-tart," wondered Filipe.

"Gentlemen!" Gilberto cut in. "My colleagues tell me the lady's calmed down ...as much as she's going to. Who shall be the first visitor?"

"I will," all three men said at once.

Héctor looked up. "Have they changed the rules? I'm the husband. I get to go in first."

Gilberto looked at all three men in sequence, "Technically, yes," he said, "but we only enforce that if the family cannot agree on what would be best."

"She saw me just three years ago," said Oscar.

"And me just two," said Filipe.

"An easier transition," they said together.

Oscar and Filipe looked at each other again.

"Plus—" said Oscar.

"Shhh!" said Filipe.

"She'll be angry," they said at once.

"She'll throw things," said Filipe.

"And we don't want her to throw them at us!" they finished together.

Héctor crossed his arms. "All right. You can go in first. But only for five minutes!" he held up one hand.

Oscar and Filipe followed Gilberto out without another word. Héctor sat down in their place. He didn't like to say it in front of Cheech and the others, liked to think Imelda never put up his photo out of hope, but he knew. Even if he'd been Héctor of the Sol Plaza Boys or Héctor who runs the music school, there was still the chance she'd be angry.

They were in there for more than five minutes. Time to wonder what Alita, Sister Maria Celeste and Lupe would all tell him to do. Why hadn't he asked Sister Maria Celeste, Lupe or Alita what to say?

The door opened. Oscar and Filipe came out first, ducking to opposite sides. Héctor stood up, straightening his vest as he did. "Imelda—" and then his mouth and throat just. stopped. working.

There she was. Violet lace-fringe stark against the bones of her face, all showing the iron that had always made up her spine, dark eyes as full of terrifying life as they'd been on their wedding day.

Later, he'd realize that Oscar and Filipe had had time to gawp confusedly at each other across the gap, that Gilberto had stepped in, mouth open and a finger raised above his clipboard, then looked left and right at the two of them, turned and scurried away. A pigeon-sized alebrije had perched on Héctor's still shoulder, pecked at his hat, and flown away.

Then Imelda looked down, at his shoes of all things. They weren't terrible, no obvious holes, no gap between sole and frame. But they weren't new or shiny, and they'd been cheap when they were. Then she looked at his clothes, which showed their wear. And he was sure she took in the weakness in his bones, fresh as it was from the loss of memory, even if she didn't yet know how it worked.

She didn't need to hear "chorizo" to know his journey away from Santa Cecilia had come to nothing.

Well _he_ wasn't nothing. He breathed in and tried again, "Imelda, I—"

There was a high-pitched sound in the back of her throat that he hadn't heard since the midwife had told him to get out of the room and not come back until he heard a baby crying. Her skirts swished as she grabbed something off her foot.

"Oh no," muttered the twins in unison. But, he'd remember later, neither of them told him to duck.

.

.  
"I think I've got most of it," Lupe muttered as she scoured at the back of Héctor's skull with Cheech's spare washcloth. "How many times did she get you?"

"I lost count," Héctor muttered dejectedly into the empty hall that Cheech's guys used for a rehearsal space.

Cheech shook his head as he turned Héctor's hat over in his hands, admiring the clear bootprint.

Lupe clicked her tongue, "I would have loved it if my no-goodnik husband had come groveling back."

"You _did_ remember to grovel, right?" said Cheech. "I mean, whenever you talked about her—" he and Lupe swapped a look. Héctor's selective deafness about news from Santa Cecilia—he would brighten up when some newly dead neighbor said she'd never remarried and ignore anyone who mentioned that she'd banned music _and_ any mention of her songwriter husband from her shop. "—you said she could hold a grudge."

Héctor sighed. "You're right. I was stupid to think she'd take me back just like that."

"The trick is to be persistent," Cheech said cheerily.

Lupe's hands went still on the washcloth.

"She's mad at you because you went away, right? Show her you're not going to go away. Be a man. Don't give up," Chicharrón gave him a shove on the shoulder.

"Well I suppose a real apology couldn't hurt," Lupe said quietly.

"Go to her brothers' shop tomorrow and bring her some flowers. In the meantime," Cheech handed the tuned guitar over to Héctor. "Let's go earn some money so you can pay for them."

"No chorizo song," said Héctor over a pointed finger.

"Fine," said Cheech.

.

.  
The next day, he made it back to the rehearsal space with a sandalprint dent in his hat. The day after that, it was a whole wingtip.

On the walk back, Héctor heard another performer, someone working in the bubbly new northern style. Héctor had enough English and French to pick out the lyrics of foreign songs.

_"Can't hurry love. No you just have to wait..."_

He found himself smiling as he sat to tune his guitar. A hardened heart had broken. He'd been gone for over forty years. Maybe it would take that long for her to forgive him. After all, no one _wanted_ to be angry all the time.

...except perhaps Imelda. Her stunning "La Llorona" had come as much from her razor spirit as her perfect pitch.

Well, it might have been just a train station chorizo, but it had costado la vida and Héctor had no intention of dejando do caer.

"Héctor?" Chicharrón's voice seemed to come from far away. "You're getting that look for when you're about to do something stupid."

"He's really hung up on this woman?" Lupe whispered.

"You thought he wasn't?" asked Cheech. "You've known him for years. He talks about her plenty."

Lupe clutched part of her skirt in her hands.

Cheech's hat was suddenly half-crushed between his thumbs. "I mean," he suddenly found the cornices very interesting. "If all he wanted was a woman, he would have married you, wouldn't he?"

Lupe's mouth fell open.

"Uh!" Cheech, "that's not how I meant to say— I meant—"

Héctor didn't notice Lupe walk out. He nodded to himself. The answer was in the music: All he had to do was _tell_ Imelda that he'd been on his way home and then _wait_. Let her be mad at him for as long as she needed, even if it took six whole months.

.  
.

Héctor crumpled up another piece of paper and tossed it over his shoulder. Lupe's yellow-and-black batwing alebrije gave a squawk and chittered at him angrily.

"What you writing, Héctor?" asked Cheech.

"A letter to Imelda," he answered.

Cheech elbowed him in the rib. "Tired of her slamming the door on you, eh?"

Héctor sighed. After dozens of shoeprints in various parts of his body, Héctor realized he had to change tack. There had never been a sign that even one of his letters to Coco had not reached home. But then, most of those envelopes had also had money in them.

"Yes. She doesn't want to see my face, so I'm making sure she doesn't have to. I send the letter. I wait a week. I show up with flowers."

"Oy, you've given me an idea," he leaned back and gave his guitar a strum, "_Roses are red. So is my rump. I broke your heart 'cause I'm dumb as a stump..._"

"Come on, Cheech."

"You're right. It needs more. _Violets are blue. Blue as a tin. You won't take me back 'cause I'm ugly as sin..._ Come on, Mr. Genius Songwriter. Let's write De la Cruz another winner."

"I'm trying to be serious, Chicarrón."

"Fine then," he swung the guitar off his knee and leaned forward. "If you get it through your head Imelda won't change her mind, are you going to marry Lupe?"

Héctor blinked. "What?"

The fingerbones of Cheech's right hand clicked nervously against the frets.

He breathed out. "You know Lupe and I are just friends, right, Cheech?" said Héctor. "I'd happily dance at her wedding." He turned his head back to the paper. "So long as her fella wasn't a complete bonehead," he said pointedly, picking up his pen.

.

RETURN TO SENDER.

RETURN TO IDIOT SENDER.

RETURN TO IDIOT NO-GOODNIK WALK-AWAY FOOL SENDER.

Héctor shuffled the unopened envelopes in his hands like playing cards.

"She actually had three different stamps made," marveled Lupe.

Héctor covered his eyes with one hand.

Lupe looked around, noting that Cheech and the guys had gone out. "Héctor," she said carefully, "you know you cannot force your wife to forgive you."

"She doesn't know what really happened," he said, tapping at the air like a drum. "If she did _then_ she still didn't want to talk to me—"

"She knows you want to apologize," said Lupe, "and she's decided not to listen. You cannot stay this blind."

Héctor's face hardened. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. "You could be right," he said, "but you know how a fella won't go with a woman he knows his friend likes? Ask Cheech how blind I am."

Lupe blinked, then shook herself. "Don't change the subject," she said, putting her hands on his shoulders, "Héctor, that was not the newly dead jitters. It was _no_. You got to find something new to hope for—Your daughter," she offered.

A heart could harden with foolishness. It could break.

"I don't want down here yet," he said.

"Not what I mean," said Lupe, holding out all ten fingers. "Maybe with Imelda here, your daughter will put up your picture."

Héctor's head lifted.

"Dia de los Muertos is only three months away," said Lupe. "And you will see Imelda at your daughter's ofrenda every year from now on. Perhaps she will never change her mind about you, but she will know where to find you if she does."

Héctor nodded.

"Let her come to you or stay away as _she_ likes," said Lupe. "Like I said, if my no-goodnik husband had come groveling back, I probably would have hit him with something much harder than my shoe."

Héctor leaned one elbow on the writing desk. "You've never told me about him."

Lupe smiled tightly. "That's because he's best left forgotten."

.

The months crawled by. Low on memories or not, Héctor could feel his heart pound. He arrived at the gates with Lupe and on one side, Chicharrón and Gazpár on the other. Up ahead, someone turned around broke away from the black-veiled gaggle to walk with them.

"You think this might be your year, Héctor?" she asked. She pointed one bony finger upward. "I put in a good word for you."

"Thank you, Sister María Celeste," said Héctor.

"Oh, Héctor, you've forgotten your basket," said Lupe, handing him an extra that she just happened to have. At his blank look, "For offerings."

"Oh! Right." He breathed out. Perhaps Coco had made his favorite ...what had he used to like to eat again? So long as it wasn't chorizo.

Héctor shuffled along with the others, tilting sideways to look up the line. The first few times he'd tried this, they'd had alphabetized books full of photos, and they'd matched people by hand. You'd had to get into the right line for your name and hometown or else you'd be waiting all night. Now the clerk was working sort of gadget covered in electric lights like a marquee. It let off a ding like a library bell, and then the line would galumph forward a few feet.

"Faster since they installed that thing," muttered Sister María Celeste.

The other nuns from Santa Cecilia made it to the front. The machine let off a series of _ding!_ noises all in a row. "Your photos are in your convent-school ofrenda!" said a cheery voice. "Have a wonderful visit."

Héctor's mouth got dry. He breathed in and out. He was being silly. It was going to be fine.

Lupe got to the front of the line. i "Your photo is on your great grand-niece's ofrenda. Looks like a big family shot."

"Yes, my sister's wedding day. I was the flower girl," said Lupe.

"How wonderful! Enjoy your visit."

Lupe's smile was small, and Héctor saw her hand go to the pocket where she still kept a painted doll with a pink dress. Lupe had talked of that wedding, solemnized long before Maia had been born.

Héctor walked up to the desk and paused. The clerk smiled and pulled a lever. There was a flash and then a dull _dong_ sound.

"I'm sorry, sir. Would you like me to try again?"

"Uh," Héctor was still blinking from the flash. "I'm Héctor Rivera from Santa Cecilia. I should be on my daughter's—"

"Here we go!"

The machine flashed again. "I'm terribly sorry, sir. It looks like you don't have a photo on an ofrenda this year."

On the other side of the wrought-iron barrier, Lupe was looking over her shoulder. "I'll catch up later," he called. Chicharrón touched Lupe on the elbow and they headed off toward the giant orange bridge that seemed to glow through the iron gates.

"Mr. Rivera," the clerk said skull shrinking down toward his collarbones, "would you please step aside so I can help the next visitor?"

"No," said Héctor, squaring his hops. "No, my daughter put my photo up this year," he said, shaking one finger. "That fancy new machine of yours has a lying transistor!"

"I'm sorry, sir, but—"

Sister Maria Celeste touched his arm, "Perhaps Socorro doesn't _have_ a photo, Héctor. There are fires, bad floods. Sometimes pictures get ruined. Poor Sister María Salvador's photo was lost back in '35. Since then—" she looked over her shoulder, back toward town.

Héctor's confidence wavered. Photos also got torn up and thrown away, he remembered. His mouth tasted sour. There was no way that Imelda would have let Coco keep a picture of him.

He turned back to the clerk. "It doesn't matter," he said. "I'm not angry. It's all right if my daughter didn't fix me any offerings. I'll go see her anyway."

"Sir, it doesn't work like that. If you aren't on an ofrenda, you can't cross the bridge."

"That's a silly rule," said Héctor.

"It's not exactly a _rule_," said the clerk, pulling his shoulders in toward his neck. "I mean ...people didn't make it up or anything." The clerk's eyes went left and right then down to his desk, where there was a big black button stamped "SECURITY."

Sister María Celeste looked at the clerk's twitching finger, then at the big black button, then back at the clerk with her best I-see-you-there-in-the-back-row glare. The pink puffball alebrije chittered ominously and blew itself up to twice its usual size. No one had shot rubber bands in Sister María Celeste's math class. The clerk lifted his hands to his chest, cringed, then slipped them out of sight.

"Héctor," Sister said quietly, "Would you like me to come back to town and wait with you? I am tired anyway."

"Sister," Héctor said wearily. "You don't have to do that." He took a deep breath. "Maybe Coco just hasn't gone through all the household things yet. Perhaps I will come with you next year."

"We may hope so, Héctor," said Sister. "But if you like I can stay."

"No," said Héctor. "No, I'm all right. I stayed behind all the other times you went for your visits without me. I'll be fine. Plenty to do!" Héctor stepped out of line and waved Sister forward, mind working fast.

.

.

"Hold still..." Héctor muttered, holding up the measuring tape. The big serpent alebrije yawned and twisted its head in the opposite direction, folding its enormous pink batwings against its blue-and-yellow scales. Héctor grumbled, making some marks on a notepad. "_Seven_ rungs in the wings..."

"What are you doing out here?" Chicarrón stomped up behind him. "You missed rehearsal."

"Rehearsal's not until two," said Héctor.

"That was three hours ago!" Cheech pulled the sketchpad out of Héctor's hands. "What is this?" he asked, turning the page sideways and squinting at the chicken scratch.

Héctor snatched it back. "I'm working on a design," he said.

Cheech looked at the winged alebrije, then leaned over Héctor's paper again. "Is that what you used all my good napkins for?" he asked. "You're making some kind of alebrije costume. Is this about them not letting you through the gate for Dia de Muertos last year?"

"Disguise, actually," he said. "And if I get the tension right, I should get just enough lift to get over security and across that darn bridge. All they'll see is one more alebrije going to eat up all the family churros. I'll go check on Coco and no one will be the wiser."

"Héctor..." Cheech's mouth stopped as he watched the other man scribble furiously. He sighed. "Why don't you just come back and have dinner with Lupe and me?" he asked. "She's making those meatball things you like."

Héctor gave a half-laugh without looking up. "When are you going to make an honest woman out of her, amigo?"

Cheech laughed. "When she says she'll put up with another no-goodnik husband!" he answered. He looked at the sketches again. "You're going to get arrested, my friend."

Héctor picked up a giant pair of dark blue wings, sewn onto a light wooden frame and gave them an experimental flap.

"No I'm not."

.

.  
Héctor got arrested.

Cheech's good napkins came apart before he even cleared the fence. He spent the weekend of Dia de los Muertos in a holding cell, the drifting melody of Ernesto de la Cruz's twentieth anniversary Sunrise Spectacular just barely audible through the bars. Flying chorizo graffiti turned up all over the city.

"It's not really us deciding who gets to go visit the living," an officer tried to explain to him. "The only reason we have fences and security is to keep people without ofrendas from mobbing the bridge so other people can't get across. Plus, you could get hurt if you fall in that ditch."

Héctor also got arrested the year he tried to smuggle himself across the bridge in a borrowed mini-fridge and the year he drove up in a van claiming he was delivering a fresh batch of photos for the database. Security guards were taught to memorize his picture.

Cheech learned quickly not to pay Héctor's bail.

"Do you have to keep doing this?" he asked one year.

Héctor was quiet for half a block. He didn't have Imelda's or Ernesto's strong, storm-thick clouds of memory holding him up any more. Instead it was like a cable, thin but gold, connecting him to Coco. If he stopped trying to hold onto it, stopped trying to pull himself toward her, he worried it would disappear.

"I think I do," he finally said.

Cheech didn't answer. They walked the rest of the way in silence.

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.

_Right wing has SEVEN rungs, not six.  
Total wingspan: TOO DAMNED BIG.  
Use X-shaped stitch. Five napkins to simulate scales.  
Plywood 2 heavy. Try plaztic.  
Fake fangs necessary for authenticity.  
SEE YOU SOON, SANTA CECILIA!_

From the notebook of Héctor Rivera

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This is actually one of the last chapters I blocked out, largely because, unlike with Alita and Gertrudís and Sister Maria Celeste, I had no idea what I wanted to do. There is one really insightful thing about the Red vs. Blue fandom. It is a deconstruction of the common "guy annoys a girl until she loves him"/"girl doesn't like guy at first but he's persistent" trope. In RvB, Tex's decision to break up with Church is consistently portrayed as right and his following her around as unhealthy. The emotional journey is Church coming to accept it all—with the help of his friends. It's a story about a love that starts unrequited and stays unrequited and still manages to be completely haunting on both sides.  
A simple three-word phrase can be so different in different contexts. "I forget you." 


	8. Afterimage

Before Ernesto, memory had felt like a thick gold fog covering the whole tunnel between Héctor and something black and yawning. Now, most of the mist was gone, and he could feel what little remained, like the last fibers of a torn tendon against the bone, thin but gold. So far, there were still a lot of smaller ropes and threads around, probably audiences he'd performed for, old schoolmates and neighbors, people he'd met on the road with 'Nesto. But there was one big one. One that he could really feel.

Héctor didn't mind. It was almost like having a picture of her.

But ...she should be the only one, shouldn't she? There was the _other_ line of memory that didn't seem to have a clear source. He'd talked it over with Cheech and Lupe.

"It's not about who you remember," said Lupe once, before that terrible day he'd come home to see Cheech with his face in his hands, newspapers about an earthquake near Lupe's hometown scattered on the floor by his feet. "It's about who remembers you. Maybe Imelda or Coco told someone about you, and you became like a story for them."

Héctor shook his head. "But wouldn't I have _some_ idea who it was?"

.

Sister María Celeste scratched her chin, the year before the leak in the nunnery roof turned half their old photos to sludge. "Could it be your granddaughter?"

"Already down here," Héctor answered. He'd heard through the Santa Cecilia grapevine that Coco's daughter Victória was making shoes with her grandmother and uncles. He'd tried again to speak to Imelda. Then he'd tried to speak to Victória anyway.

"It's a mystery," she'd said.

.

"You know, I'm not sure," said Gilberto as they walked side by side down a lane filled with small, low houses. "You say you have no idea who this other person who remembers you could be?"

"I can tell I'm important to him, but that's it. Or her," corrected Héctor. Alita and her kitchen-table opinions.

They stopped outside a pale blue house with pink trim.

"Thanks for helping me find this place," added Gilberto. "Ugh, it ought to be covered in gingerbread like in that story.

"What are tour guides for?" Héctor asked, adjusting the nametag still stuck to his vest. "And I ain't no Gretel. You want me to go in with you?"

"Now that she's finally dead?" Gilberto squared his small shoulders. "I gotta do this myself."

Héctor gave Gilberto a slap on the back as he knocked on the door and went to face his bruja.

.  
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The cable broke one day when Héctor was in the middle of a tour. Sixteen new arrivals got a firsthand look at what was coming for them as he threw his hands around a lamppost to keep from falling down as the gold escaped from his body like steam. One of them might have screamed.

It wasn't Coco. At least he knew it wasn't Coco. But whoever this was, they'd remembered him hard.

He pulled himself together and finished the tour. Lousiest tips he'd ever gotten. Then he went to the office of New Arrivals.

"And what is the deceased's name?" asked a woman with hot pink hair.

"Ah... I don't know?"

"Place of residence?"

"Don't got that either, actually."

"Your relationship to the deceased?"

"Well..."

In the end, he'd asked Gilberto for the favor. Gil had pulled himself away from his desk, rubbed his egg-plain face and dragged his tired eyes through a file cabinet.

"You know exactly when it happened?" he asked.

"I was right in front of the clock in the Plaza de la Cruz. One of my customers took a photo of it with me convulsing in the background." He held up the copy.

Gilberto eyed it and gave it back to Héctor. "I could get fired for this, but..." he handed Héctor a piece of paper with an address on it.

.  
.

Héctor could hear voices and laughing inside the ground floor apartment. He straightened his vest and knocked on the door. There was a shuffling of chairs and a few moments later a stout man in a dark vest opened it.

"Can I help you?" he asked, pushing his round glasses back up on his face.

"This may be a funny question," he said, pulling back his chin and tapping at the air with one hand, "but did any of you die two days ago, and do I know you?"

.  
.

Ten minutes later, he was at their kitchen table, holding out a cup as a newly dead woman in thick horn-rim glasses poured hot tea.

"So because you're nearly forgotten—" said the older man.

"Papá," chided the woman with the teakettle as the older woman echoed, "Ricardo, _manners_."

"—you can tell how many people still remember you?" he finished.

Héctor nodded. "It's mostly just my daughter now, but before the lady died, it was two people."

"But I am sure I don't know you," she said.

Gertrudis eyed Héctor. Suddenly he had the feeling she was the sort of person who could look at a beach and tell you how many grains of sand it had, then sort them by size, color and how much she hated them. She was wearing a flower-print dress and high, cylindrical hairdo that had been popular about twenty years earlier.

"You say you died in 1921?" said Gertrudis, frowning behind her glasses. "That's before any of us were born."

"I probably have the wrong person." Héctor started to stand up.

"No," Gertrudis followed him, shaking a finger, "no, I want to solve this. We lived in Oaxaca but I went to school in California, where I met my husband," said Gertrudis, putting her hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Are you from either of those places?"

"No," said Héctor. "I'm from a town called Santa Cecilia."

The mood at the table changed like a draft blowing open a window. Gertrudis' parents and husband all sat up, rounding on Héctor as if he'd slapped someone in the face. Gertrudis nearly dropped the teakettle, eyes lighting up like a birthday cake. "Did you know Ernesto de la Cruz?" she asked.

"Yes, we were good friends, actually. He there when I died."

"And are you the one who—"

"Gertrudis!" her father snapped just as her husband said, "Corazon—" and her mother said, "Think of what happened!"

"Mr. Rivera," Gertrudis' father stood up, "I think it is time for you to leave." Not waiting for an answer, he pushed Héctor toward the door like a steam shovel.

"Papá!" Gertrudis protested, but Héctor found himself outside in the night air, hat in his hand, wondering what happened.

The door was thick, and the voices were muffled, but Héctor had been married to Imelda long enough to know an argument when he heard one. The pitch went up and down until finally he made out, "We will _not_ leave that man outside with no idea why we're angry at him!"

Héctor had to agree with that last part. After another minute, the door opened.

"What do you say, my love?" asked Gertrudis' mother.

"I'm sorry," huffed Gertrudis' father. "Would you please come back inside?"

Héctor eyed them both and wondered how curious he really was.

"I was a Ph.D. candidate," said Gertrudis as she led him back to the kitchen. Héctor nodded. "Computer analytics with a special interest in music theory."

"Computers?" Héctor stopped. The only computers he knew were the ones who wouldn't let him across the flower bridge.

"Yes. Specifically, I wrote algorithms that let me analyze sheet music and recordings." Gertrudis sat down at the table. Her father glared at Héctor over folded arms. Her mother looked worried. "I did Infante, Negrete, Frank Sinatra, the Gershwin brothers..."

"And what's that got to do with me?"

"Well," Gertrudis' breath seemed to shudder as she drew it in, "I wrote my dissertation on the hypothesis that all of Ernesto de la Cruz's most popular songs were written by the same person," she looked up from her folded hands, "within a span of no more than five to eight years."

Héctor's mouth fell open.

Gertrudis counted on her thick fingers. "Almost no influence from late swing, jazz, the blues or any other genre that developed after nineteen twenty-five," she said. "And what little improvised work we see from De la Cruz himself _does_ show such patterns. So, I concluded that he did not write any of the songs for which he is principally known."

Héctor leaned forward, one elbow on the table. "A computer told you all that?"

Gertrudis chuckled, "Well, I had to teach the computer how to talk, and then it told me that." She gave a thin laugh. "I figured if those people in France could try to prove the Iliad and the Odyssey really were written by just one man and not a whole team, why not use music as the language instead of ancient Greek? Your name's 'Héctor' and not 'Homer,' but it's the same idea."

"And..." Héctor knew there was no heart in his chest, but he could feel it pound anyway. "So ...you remembered _me_, even though you didn't know anything about me except that I wrote 'Nesto's songs?"

Alita, Sister Celeste, Lupe and Cheech all knew everything about Héctor _except_ that he really had written Ernesto's music. This woman was like what happened with your eyes if you stared at a light too long.

"No!" Ricardo interrupted Héctor's thoughts. "She remembered you because the De la Cruz estate sued her!"

"What?"

Gertrudis looked away. Her husband moved his chair closer and put his arm around her shoulders.

"And the university. And her academic advisor," snapped Ricardo. "Said it was defamation!"

Gertrudis opened her mouth and then closed it again.

Héctor looked at Gertrudis and back to Ricardo. "I don't know much about university things, but is it illegal for you to—"

"_No!_" shouted Ricardo. "She didn't do _anything_ illegal, but we still had to hire lawyers. It took years."

"California didn't have laws against doing that back then," said Gertrudis' husband. "They've got something now, anti-SLAPP, I think they call it. But back then if you had enough money you could sue even if you knew you'd lose, just to make the person you were suing give up. Ricardo and Marisa had to sell their house," he went on. "The university threw out Gerti's paper, and starting over with something else isn't really something you can do at that level. The school saw her as a liability by then anyway. She never got her doctorate."

"I got a job at a computer company," said Gertrudis. She smiled and squeezed her husband's hand. "I got married and raised a family. But no, I didn't become a professor of computer science or start my own firm."

"Don't talk about this like it was just you not getting your dream," said Gertrudis' mother. "When those men in the courtroom called you those awful names in front of everyone, we thought you were going to kill yourself."

"I wasn't going to kill myself."

"But _we_ thought you were."

"I'm so sorry," said Héctor. To think, he had been part of this woman's life, but in such a terrible, terrible way. There was nothing as harrowing as being betrayed by your dream.

Gertrudis' mother eyed him over her glasses but didn't say anything.

"That man is even more powerful down here," said Ricardo. "So don't you..." he shook a finger at Héctor. "Don't you ..._make trouble_." Héctor looked at Ricardo over his folded arms, over the layers of anger and bravado that couldn't cover up the shame of a man who hadn't been able to protect his family.

Héctor was already shaking his head. "I won't. I don't even perform any more," he said. "I'm sorry I bothered you people with this."

Gertrudis was pushing herself to her feet. "I'll show Mr. Rivera out," she said. "No—" she held up a hand to her husband. "I'll do it myself. I'm all right."

The two of them walked quietly to the door, which Gertrudis closed behind her once they were outside.

"My parents still get upset about what happened," she said. "Those years were our hell."

"I can't even imagine." Héctor couldn't think of what else to say. "I wish 'Nesto had lived longer. He would never have let that happen."

She let out a shaky breath. "If I understand the way it works," she said. "I was keeping you alive until the other day?"

"When you died, yes," he said. "So long as you were in the land of the living, and you remembered me, you were holding me back from the final death."

"But De la Cruz and his lawyers too?" she said, eyes narrowing behind her horn-rims. "Every time I thought about those men, I was keeping them strong?" Her mouth began to smile. "And now that I'm dead, _I'm not?_" The smile got bigger, and the lenses in her glasses took on the sheen of ice.

Héctor realized what she meant. "It wasn't really Ernesto who hurt you like that, Gertrudis. He was already down here."

Gertrudis shrugged. "_I_ am glad you came, Mr. Rivera," she said holding out her hand. "Here you are, the not exactly living proof that I wasn't out of my mind after all."

"Uh, glad to help?" he said, suddenly uncomfortable.

"It's been an enlightening two days," she said. "But what I learned from my time in the living world is that you can't wait for anyone to save you, not a lawyer, not a judge, not anyone," she said. She looked away. "But I still couldn't manage to save myself. Sometimes I feel like I got burned down." She turned her head to the side, "Whatever it is you were looking for here, Héctor, _go get it_. Don't hold anything back."

Héctor nodded and pulled away.

He had a long walk back to Cheech's place to figure out what she meant. Automatically, he walked to the tiny trunk in the corner near his bed. He opened it, rifled through to the bottom and pulled out the jacket he'd been wearing the day he died.

From the pocket, he pulled a photo.

Maybe there was a way after all.

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Notes: This chapter didn't come out quite like I'd hoped, but it was one of the first ideas I had for this story: Someone who remembered Hector but knew him solely through the negative space he'd left in the world.


	9. Final

"Go home," he said. He could see Miguel's cheekbones through the shadow of his skin. The sun was rising.

Miguel's head reared back on his neck as he disintegrated, orange petals scattering like dead leaves.

Héctor recoiled. "Miguel!" Gold hissed out from his bones as the shout ate away at what was left of him.

Imelda's hand clamped down hard on his fingerbones. "No, he's fine. Héctor, Miguel is all right." Her other hand came to his face, forced his eyes away from where the sunlight was going right through the place where their boy had been. "That is what the curse looks like when it breaks. Miguel is back among the living." He saw her press her mouth shut for a second. She used to do that when she wasn't sure. It would be another year, another Día de los Muertos before the Rivera family would learn whether Miguel had made it back to Santa Cecilia.

Héctor... Héctor would _never_ know.

He tried to swallow, but he couldn't remember what it was like to have a throat. He just nodded.

"I didn't think..." Imelda stopped. "I thought you couldn't care about anyone but yourself. I was wrong."

_It's not your fault Imelda._

_I'm sorry, Imelda._

_Well yes, you should have figured that part out. Even if you didn't take me back, you could have let our granddaughter_ talk_ to me._

_You're the only thing in the world that could still hurt me, Imelda._

He managed to make his mouth open.

"I..." another breath.

He was a musician. He'd remember how to use his voice long after he forgot his heartbeat.

"I get ...to die in your arms after all." Then the smile. That trickster smile that had stolen him so many of her kisses, and brought her to the altar, and then been powerless for sixty years.

"What do we tell Miguel?" she asked. "When he—when we see him again?"

He pulled his voice together. "Made ...my last night ...best." He looked right at her. "Lie."

Footsteps behind them. He heard a voice that might have been a security guard, and another that might have been Rosita telling them to stay away. They'd know what they were seeing and that there was no point in interfering. It would be over soon.

He couldn't feel Imelda's arms around him, her hand still clamped around his. He couldn't see her face, just everything going black and gold. He couldn't move. The world was an illusion, as if the afterlife had always been a lie they told to children. A dead man was nothing but bones.

He was used to think of fear being a cold feeling in his guts, a tingle down his spine, a sinking in his heart. Real fear was no guts, no spine, no heart.

There was nothing left, nothing but the thinnest of gold threads, knotted and frayed like an old guitar string about to snap.

"Coco," but had he said it out loud or not?

And the thread began to hum. Hummed like a smile, like a song.

Something moved, like a feather floating out into the void. But it didn't go far. It hit something. And suddenly there were two threads. Then more. Then they twisted together like a rope, like a dozen hands and arms pulling him away from the edge.

Héctor breathed in. He breathed in. "Miguel?"

"We sent him back, Héctor. He is all right."

"No, I—" he pulled one arm behind himself.

"Don't try to get up—"

Héctor swallowed. He felt like he had a mouth again. He put a hand to his chest, trying to feel the memory inside him, but it was already starting to blur and thicken. Soon it wouldn't feel like individual people any more. He looked at Victória. "You have a sister. She's Elena?"

Victória looked at Imelda and slowly nodded.

"And there are ...more? The family?"

Rosita put a hand to her mouth. "Coco told them about you."

"It wouldn't have taken much," said Victoria. "If they know one thing about you then you are remembered. Your name is enough by itself."

Not even always that, Héctor thought, suddenly remembering Gertrudis and her computer talk.

He stared at his hands. "Well they know more than my name."

"Miguel was right," Héctor breathed, staring at his hands. They looked like bones but felt like flesh. They felt more like hands than they had in years. He'd forgotten fingerprints. He'd forgotten lines on knuckles and the way nails scraped into palms.

"Right about what?" asked Imelda.

He met her eyes, pushing himself up on steady arms.

"You _definitely_ said 'love of your life.'"

.  
.

_You can't change an old path,_  
_So why ever look back?_  
_You know where each dusty step led._  
_But as it turns out,_  
_I've more road than I thought,_  
_So, my dear, shall we see what's ahead?_

-"Love of My Life," by Héctor Rivera

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.

.

This was one of the first chapters I wrote for this story, a while after seeing the movie for the first time. It also created the need for the Gertrudis chapter or something like it to act as a spacer between Imelda's arrival and the film itself.


	10. Descent

Ugh, yesterday I accidentally deleted about 2000 words off my NaNo 'fic. It's terrible, as required, but it's providing wonderful impetus to actually finish all my other stories.

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There was a legal system. There were police. There were set punishments for set crimes like theft and fraud and falsifying a unibrow. Assault wasn't such a problem when no one could be injured. But murder? What _was_ violence when it simply wasn't possible to kill anyone?

Not most people, anyway.

Cursed people fell through now and again, and now and again they fell again, off some high ledge. A normal person would have fallen to pieces and been put back together, but the living just died. But when everyone blamed the curse, there was no need to make a law against murder.

Now the crime of trying to bring on a _final_ death, of preventing someone from being remembered?

That was something new under the sun. No law. No precedent. How would you even set bail? Was the perpetrator a danger to the public? If there hadn't been thousands of witnesses, or even if the video hadn't been recorded, it would have been easier to pretend it hadn't happened, easier than turning poison into chorizo.

So Ernesto sat in a cell and waited.

On the second day, Ernesto decided he would apologize to Héctor. It was the right thing to do. It was what his mother and father, and perhaps Sister Maria Celeste's God would have wanted from him. But Héctor did not come.

The next day he decided, when Héctor came, he would say he'd been frightened. He would say he'd feared losing his chance at fame, his reputation. He'd been afraid of the cursed boy. Héctor, Ernesto's soft-headed Héctor, would forgive him. And then he could be persuaded to get everyone else to forgive him. Who'd argue with that?

The day after that, he decided to ask Héctor, "How is my boy? Did he get home all right?" because of course Miguel really was his great-great grandson after all. That other mess had only been a misunderstanding. Héctor's progeny could never perform with such natural talent. He'd only ever wanted his great-great-grandson home safe and sound. All of it had been part of the plan.

The fifth day, he swore he wouldn't say a word. Just stare at the wall like Héctor wasn't even there.

The sixth day, he forgot Héctor and thought of Miguel. Ernesto had always had a hard time focusing on fans as individuals, but when Miguel had been standing right in front of him, believing for all the world that they were family, he'd been able to feel the memory, filling him up like champagne in a glass. The best audience connection ever. Singing with him, showing him off to his guests. Oh...

And then Héctor had shown up in that ridiculous disguise, and Miguel had figured it out, and he'd watched the bright gold turn to dross.

"You don't think that ...do you?"

He hadn't needed to hear Miguel's terrible acting or even see the fear in his eyes. He'd felt the memory in his bones turn sour. A second earlier he'd been shining like a star.

Shining...

On the seventh day, his lawyer came and told him he was out on bail. He went home.

His steps echoed in the halls. Dust was gathering. Half the staff had quit.

Ernesto picked up a guitar from one of the dozens he owned. His fingers hand had been badly crushed by the bell, but they'd come together again, tight as ever. He was remembered. The neck of the instrument settled into his hands like a bird into a nest.

Ernesto smiled. This wasn't the end.

Héctor had been the songwriter of their pair, true, but Ernesto had always been the better performer because _he_ understood that the audience needed more than a song. They needed a _story_ to give it depth and context, to tell them why they should care about a man caterwauling about loving a crazy woman or being remembered. That was how you turned poison into a joke about a chorizo.

The people in the land of the dead were only half the story. No matter they hated him. So long as people in the land of the living still remembered him as the greatest musician of all time, he would still have offerings and importance.

No one would believe Miguel, a twelve-year-old nobody, just like no one had believed that computer woman back in the eighties. But even if they did, the truth was, in this newer, darker century, Ernesto de la Cruz who'd sacrificed his best friend in a devil's bargain for fame made a far more memorable story than Ernesto the small-town boy who'd made good. He'd come out of this. He'd be remembered longer than ever. He'd probably still outlast Héctor. The victim was never as powerful as the villain.

Ernesto plucked out the first chords of "Mi Familia." They echoed back at him from the high walls. He swallowed. Suddenly, he knew it didn't matter if his hand healed or not. He knew what would happen if he called his assistant to book a performance. The guitar twanged out into an empty room, with no cheers for the harmony. Just strings glued to a wooden box.

Ernesto slung the sleek black guitar over his shoulder by its strap and took the stairs one at a time, down out of his grand house. People parted him for him in the streets, with whispers instead of cheers. Ernesto made a right turn and then a left, not sure what he was looking for. Then he realized it did not matter. One building was as good as another.

The greatest musician of all time could play anywhere he wanted. To any empty room.

.

.

_Thought the light outta you,_  
_Cast that shadow in me._  
_Should have known you were fake._  
_Should have known I was free._  
_I never came down your river._  
_Never fell from your tree._  
—"Descent," by Miguel Rivera

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The original concept for this chapter was Héctor having a conversation with Ernesto while he's sitting in a jail cell. Then I realized Héctor would be way too busy figuring out where he fit in with the Rivera family to spare even a second for any of that. And he would certainly not spare Ernesto enough emotional energy to write a song about him


	11. All

"Stop pacing, Héctor," said Imelda, straight back not even grazing the wall behind the smooth wooden bench.

"How long do we have to wait?" he said, arms in the air. "It's been ninety-seven years."

"As long as it takes," she answered. "Julio is her husband, so he sees her first."

Victória looked over her glasses at Rosita, who tipped her head to the side.

"We did all agree to follow the usual rule," said Oscar.

"Yes, who knows what would have happened if we'd done that last time?" said Filipe.

Rosita frowned. "Last time? But I'm not married and neither is—"

She and Victória looked at Imelda, who'd stiffened up like a board. Héctor stopped pacing. What _would_ have happened if he'd gone in first, gotten his apology in edgewise before Imelda had started throwing things?

He looked at Imelda. She looked at him. They both looked at the ceiling.

It had been an awkward two months. He touched the edge of his blue vest. Victória didn't know whether to call him "Héctor" or "Abuelo," but she'd held out a hand and demanded his shirt, ripping back the sleeves for patches and handing him back a respectable garment. Imelda didn't know whether to call him "Héctor" or "idiota," but she'd pushed a pair of wingtips at him. Because it would be bad for the shoemaking business if her husband was seen barefoot.

"So I'm your husband again?" he'd asked.

"I don't know what you are."

Thin walls meant they could hear voices but not the words behind them. A few came through paneling.

"Julio?"

The murmur of Julio's voice. Héctor smiled. He could tell how Julio felt. He hadn't been so very old when he'd died, and the satisfaction of knowing their reunion came only after his beloved had lived a long and full—

There was a crash as something shattered against the wall behind them.

"I TOLD YOU TO TAKE YOUR HEART MEDICINE EVERY DAY!"

A picture fell off a nearby desk and smashed on the floor. Clerks reached out and steadied their coffee mugs.

"I PUT YOUR PILLS OUT FOR YOU EVERY MORNING WITH THE GLASS OF WATER!"

They could hear Julio try to say something.

"BUT NO! YOU HIDE THEM IN YOUR SHOE!"

Rosita put a hand to her mouth. "Is _that_ what happened?"

"If it is, I'll punch him myself," said Victória.

"Muñeca!" protested Julio.

"DON'T GIVE ME MUÑECA! YOU MISSED OUR ELENITA'S WEDDING DAY. YOU MISSED OUR GRANDCHILDREN!"

Victória made a clicking sound. "We've been trying to tell you Mamá wasn't a sweet little girl her whole life," she said. "She could be tough."

"No, I remember this," said Héctor, holding up one finger. There was another crash. "Especially at bedtimes."

"She has better aim with her shoe than I do," said Imelda with a hint of pride.

"NUESTRO BERTO! NUESTRO ENRIQUE! And I think there was a boy named after you."

"They thought about it, but they called him 'Miguel' instead."

"THAT'S RIGHT. NUESTRO MIGUEL! Y ABEL! Y ROSA! Y LOS GEMALITOS Y SOCORRO!"

The voices took a long time to die down. Héctor adjusted his tie again. Rosita had made him a new one. The vest fit beautifully, and the shoes, but he couldn't get the knack of—

"Oh let me," said Imelda. She rose to her feet, squared his shoulders with her two hands so his back was to the door and then got to retying the neckerchief with a practiced flip. She'd used to do this for him, before performances, before church. Héctor watched her face. He still wasn't used to her touching him on purpose. He wasn't used to feeling alive enough for it to matter.

_"You tie your tie crooked on purpose,"_ she'd said to him once. "We have a real baby now. I can't have a husband who's helpless like one."

"I don't know what you mean, mi amor," he'd said, perfectly straight face.

"Don't tell me you played that gig in Oaxaca with Ernesto and didn't tie your own tie once."

"Maybe 'Nesto tied it for me," he said. "Maybe he's a better wife than you."

"You pretended you couldn't do this back when we were teenagers, so I'd come over and help you. So I'd talk to you."

He began to smile into another joke, but then stopped.

"You got me," he said, raising his hands to his neck and finishing the job himself. Flip. Flip. Knot.

She narrowed her eyes at him, but he could see the bits of smile at the edges of her mouth. "Maybe I just like it when you do this for me," he said, settling the knot. "Maybe it reminds me of something."

"You can't be a trickster your whole life, Héctor. The world isn't an act."

"I tricked you into saying 'I do,' so it seems like a good deal to me." She rewarded him with a scowl. She pretended to be a termagant. He pretended to be a fool. He had his tricks and she pretended she couldn't see through every last one.

Coco had started crying then.

"You know, Imelda," he said, backing away toward the bassinet, "most husbands pretend they can't change a diaper. How many baby butts got a rash for that act?"

He barely noticed the door open behind them. "Victória! My girl!" Héctor saw his stoic granddaughter's face crumple in a smile. "Oh Mamá, is that you? Who's—"

Héctor twisted around, Imelda's hands still on his vest.

Coco's fine-boned hands went to her mouth.

There she was, his same girl with years layered on top of her like mother of pearl, two braids framing the violet marks on her cheeks.

"Papá?"

He nodded.

Coco looked to Imelda and Héctor and back.

He took a deep breath. "Coco, I—"

She stepped forward and Héctor's voice disappeared, no apologies, no explanations. Surrounded by their family, Coco gave him the biggest hug.

_"I told myself I could charm any puzzle, _  
_Find the words and the pieces would fall, _  
_The trick was it never mattered. _  
_My tricks never mattered. _  
_You were there. I was there. That was all."_  
-"Trickster" by Héctor Rivera


	12. Partner

There were lots of ways into the land of the dead. For some people it was a smooth road through the woods. Others followed their alebrijes over mountains or through ravines full of ice. Héctor sometimes wondered what Imelda had seen that only a monster like Pepita could have led her past.

Other people swam the river, following the bright pink and green of the beast like a beacon against the gray water, collapsing exhausted on the bank. Sometimes the alebrije kept watch. Sometimes it went to get help, scratching on the kitchen door in the middle of dinnertime, dragging you into the road, throwing its head over its shoulder to make sure you were still following.

Héctor waited, one elbow on his knee, one eye on the alebrije, until the new arrival breathed in and pulled himself up on his arms.

"Hey," Héctor said gently. "We all agreed I should be here when you woke up, so—"

"Héctor?"

"Yeah. How are you fff—"

The other man nearly tackled him out of his wingtips, letting out a shout that could have shaken leaves off the trees. Héctor struggled for balance against what had to be the biggest hug he'd gotten since Coco.

"I never knew! I never knew!" he laughed like a bass drum.

"What?!" asked Héctor.

He pulled back and gripped Héctor's shoulders with both hands, hunching slightly to look him in the eye. "I never knew _if you made it_. You were—" He covered his mouth with his hand for a second, then pulled him into another hug. "I didn't know if it counted if it came too late."

"Aquí estoy," said Héctor, patting his back. "It was a close thing, but I'm still here."

"I'm so glad to see you," the other man let go. "I thought—on Día de Muertos—but I was never sure."

"Every year," he said, swishing one hand to the side. "Didn't miss a one. Even when you were on tour in Japan and set up that ofrenda with those weird red things. Imelda was not a fan, but Coco liked them."

"Japan? That was forever ago." He took another deep breath. "But how come I can see you?" he asked. "Did I get cursed again?"

Héctor looked at Dante, who slowly looked at Miguel and then at Héctor.

Miguel's face was open, confused. He had Coco's gold spirals, and green and violet marks above the eyes, just like his Papá Héctor. And two sunburst flowers gleaming out from his cheekbones.

"No," he said. "No, m'ijo, you're not cursed."

"Then—" Miguel stopped. "Oh," he said taking a step back. He lifted his fingers up to his eyes, flexing and straightening the bones. "_Oh._"

"It's going to be okay, chamaco," said Héctor.

Miguel gulped, still staring at his hands. "How did—How..?" He stared at Dante. "The last thing I remember before I spotted you was..."

"It might be better if you don't try to—"

"I had this headache from... Oh God!" Miguel jumped up. "Are the others here?"

"Filipe went to get Elena and Coco."

"No!" he slashed the air with both hands. "Enrique and his friend were both in the car with me! Are they _here?_"

Héctor was already shaking his head. "No. No, chamaco, it's just you. You and some drunk driver but—"

"Forget him," they said at the same time.

"Did they get hurt?" asked Miguel. "Did he _see_ it?"

"We don't know, Miguel," he said. "We can go on Día de Muertos to check on them."

"One day a year?" the words ripped out of Miguel like a wound. "That's _all we get?_"

Héctor dropped his shoulders and nodded.

Miguel rubbed his hands over his face. "Here I am saying this to you, to _you_. I mean, I got more years than you did, so—"

"You're too young," Héctor cut him off. "You didn't get to see your kid grow up, so you're too young."

Miguel stared out at the river for a long time, as if his eyesight could follow all the way to Santa Cecilia. To the family.

"You look good," he said at last. "You look ...stronger."

"I am stronger," answered Héctor. "There's you, and the family, and now the public knows about my songs. Coco can tell you, though," he raised an eyebrow, pulling up his best tricks, "there's nothing quite like having a _namesake_. 'Enrique,' ey?"

Miguel moved one hand to look Héctor in the eye. "Mari and I wanted him to have better luck than you. My papá may not have been a famous musician, but he had a job he loved, three kids, a wife who adored him." And he'd outlived his son. For the first time in a long time, Héctor thought of Lupe.

Miguel breathed out. "Mari..."

Héctor stayed quiet. Miguel would ask the usual questions when he was ready. _Am I still her husband? Is it bad that I wish she was here? What do I do if I visit and she's got a new man?_ He and that smiling creature Héctor had seen on his arm would work it out in their own time, like so many had before them. Gilberto had lectured him on proper counseling often enough.

"This might sound weird," said Miguel, "but you look young, I mean _really_ young."

"I _was_ young. You get older here but not in the same way." He held up his arm with Cheech's duct tape still on it. He hadn't had any new breaks, but it still ached in damp weather. Or when anyone played "Juanita."

Dante sat down next to Miguel on the sand, wiggling his head underneath his arm. Miguel's fingers moved as he scratched the beast's ears. He'd still feel like he had flesh and fingerprints. He was remembered.

"You know, for a long time, I thought it all might've been a dream," said Miguel. "I decided it didn't matter if you were real. You changed my life anyway." He looked back at the water. "Because of you, I formed the band, I met Mari," he picked up a pebble and threw it back toward the current. "We had Enrique."

"You'll find your way here, Miguel," he said. "Dying is a big deal, but life goes on. And you'll have your family here to guide you."

Miguel looked back at him with a sad smile that Héctor didn't quite understand.

"I started my band again a few years back," said Héctor, "but it's been a long time since I've written songs with a partner."

Miguel rubbed Dante's head again. "Sounds good but I have to warn you, I've been a musician for a long time. I mean, I love the ranchero style, but I've had a lot of other influences over the years. I've got my own way of doing things."

Héctor smiled. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

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.

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The end.


End file.
